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One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

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Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#31

Post by smelendez »

axaxs wrote: post #25

I'm a bit curious on school bus thoughts by area. Where I'm at now, it seems like they don't want to run them at all. They put the best schools up as 'choice school' lottery, which means no bus, and if you live within two miles of a school, no bus. Even if you offer to pay. Of the 600 students in my child's school, 400 spend 45 minutes in a line twice a day, most due to the circumstances. Obviously not an effective u…

Same. I grew up on Long Island taking the bus to school, as did every kid of sub-driving age I knew. Under New York law, even private school students got subsidized buses if the school was in some reasonable distance. We watched sitcoms and movies from Pete and Pete to Christmas stories where kids took the yellow bus to school.

Now I don't have kids, but plenty of my friends around the country do, and I'm always shocked to learn that school buses don't seem to be an option. Either they just don't exist in the district, or they require kids to cross major commercial roads to get to a stop.

The depressing thing to me is parents sort of roll their eyes when I ask, like this reasonable public amenity that everyone I grew up with relied on less than 20 years ago is the equivalent of the neighborhood milkman.

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#32

Post by afterburner »

malandrew wrote: post #23

$2000 per student per year is insane for a bus service. That's like $10 a day. You could probably UberPool every kid at that price since you'd have a high utilization rate for two narrow 30 min to 1 hour windows each day.

Uhhhh, wouldn't they get surge pricing?

Plus you're talking about investor-subsidized transport. Sure, it would be nice to have investors subsidize school transport.

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#33

Post by yardstick »

joe_the_user wrote: post #26
b_tterc_p wrote: post #4

Here’s an article about some MIT folks who tried to do this and were shut down by annoying rich people. My greatest frustration is that they complain about black box algorithms when in fact it is a perfectly clear, ambiguity-free optimization function. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/joi-ito-ai-...

Oh I remember this story. Back then when I dug into it, it was a real spin-versus-spin situation. Sure, when you introduce an approach that suddenly creates considerable inconvenience for some population of parents, sure they complain (no one likes having to drop off kids at ~ vaguely recalling ~ 10 am and pick at 5 pm, sheesh, it was something terrible). Some large portion of working people are fairly dependent thei…

For elementary students apparently “Hundreds of families were facing a 9:30 to 7:15 a.m. shift.”

That’s a significant change in wake up time. Yeah, I’m not keen on that. It’s a non-starter.

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#34

Post by mac01021 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #29
ndjskska wrote: post #27

In Germany we're assigned to the nearest school. I remember walking to school in elementary school, later taking the bike for 20 min or public transportation. I don't live in a particularly dense area. Is Boston too sparsely populated to have schools in walking or biking distance? Seems that we accept distances of 1-2 km for elementary school walks. (0.6 to 1.2 miles)

Boston is different from this in a whole variety of ways. 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia. 2) Boston's transportation system is broken on just about every levels. The street organization is irrational, derived haphazardly from ad-hoc pre-auto paths. The public transit system was also built in an ad-hoc and is at level w…

Isn't Boston's climate very similar to most of Germany's?

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#35

Post by dspig »

mac01021 wrote: post #34
joe_the_user wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston is different from this in a whole variety of ways. 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia. 2) Boston's transportation system is broken on just about every levels. The street organization is irrational, derived haphazardly from ad-hoc pre-auto paths. The public transit system was also built in an ad-hoc and is at level w…

Isn't Boston's climate very similar to most of Germany's?

And maybe the street layout?

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#37

Post by vmurthy »

Here's something that UPS is doing [1] and something FedEx is doing [2]

(these two should know a few things about route optimization :-)

"Another proprietary tool UPS uses to manage its fleet system is ORION (On-road Integrated Optimization and Navigation)...The cost and time savings and emission reduction based on this optimization alone is extraordinary—UPS expects to reduce delivery miles by 100 million"

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/06/15/the-bril...

[2]https://routific.com/stories/fedex-courier/

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#38

Post by superpermutat0r »

vmurthy wrote: post #37

Here's something that UPS is doing [1] and something FedEx is doing [2] (these two should know a few things about route optimization :-) "Another proprietary tool UPS uses to manage its fleet system is ORION (On-road Integrated Optimization and Navigation)...The cost and time savings and emission reduction based on this optimization alone is extraordinary—UPS expects to reduce delivery miles by 100 million" [1] https…

It's not whole FedEx. It's one office.

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#39

Post by Swizec »

joe_the_user wrote: post #29
ndjskska wrote: post #27

In Germany we're assigned to the nearest school. I remember walking to school in elementary school, later taking the bike for 20 min or public transportation. I don't live in a particularly dense area. Is Boston too sparsely populated to have schools in walking or biking distance? Seems that we accept distances of 1-2 km for elementary school walks. (0.6 to 1.2 miles)

Boston is different from this in a whole variety of ways. 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia. 2) Boston's transportation system is broken on just about every levels. The street organization is irrational, derived haphazardly from ad-hoc pre-auto paths. The public transit system was also built in an ad-hoc and is at level w…

> 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia.

Is it true that in some places this paranoia has gotten so far that you’ll get reported to child services if you let your kids walk to school?

> 3) Boston's weather is also miserable - the place is at just latitude so that wet, 30 degree weather prevails in winter, giving freezing rain, frozen rain, slush and all manner of nastiness. Plus horrible hot, humid summers. So you have to avoid walking a lot.

In Slovenia, same latitude as Montreal, I walked to school and back every day for 16 years. Yes even college.

What’s the problem with walking a kilometer or two in ... weather? Sometimes it rains, sometimes it snows, slush in spring, hot in summer ... so what? Just dress appropriately.

I have fond memories of early spring where you walk to school in a winter jacket and back from school in a t-shirt jacket in hand.

Re: One City Saved $5M by Routing School Buses with an Algorithm

#40

Post by msl »

mac01021 wrote: post #34
joe_the_user wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boston is different from this in a whole variety of ways. 1) Americans just in general tend to drive their kids to school dues to fear of child abductions and related ever-present paranoia. 2) Boston's transportation system is broken on just about every levels. The street organization is irrational, derived haphazardly from ad-hoc pre-auto paths. The public transit system was also built in an ad-hoc and is at level w…

Isn't Boston's climate very similar to most of Germany's?

One thing I have learned from reading (and occasionally taking part in) these discussions is that no, it is not. The US is different. It is too big, too small, too densely populated, too sparsely populated, too hot, too cold, too dry and too humid for anything to work. It does not matter if something appears to work most everywhere else. It will not work anywhere in the US.
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